Sharing false information causes real damage

There are real dangers to jumping on the latest bandwagon, especially without getting the whole story — or even the correct one. Let’s talk about women’s boxing at the Olympics.

Italian boxer Angela Carini withdrew 46 seconds into her opening fight against Algerian boxer Imane Khelif from Algeria, saying at the time : “I felt a severe pain in my nose, and with the maturity of a boxer, I said ‘enough,’ because I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to, I couldn’t finish the match.” Carini has also apologized to Khelif for not shaking her hand at the end of the match, and for the onslaught of speculation about her gender. Carini said , “All this controversy certainly made me sad, and I also felt sorry for my opponent, she had nothing to do with it and like me was only here to fight.”

That didn’t stop the Internet, including political leaders in Utah, from exploding into rumors that Khelif was actually a man, competing as a woman. Something about a lie making its way around the world while the truth is still getting its boots on comes to mind.

The 25-year-old Khelif was born female and competed as a female in the Tokyo Olympics, losing in the quarterfinal round to Ireland’s Kellie Harrington — and didn’t face any false allegations about her gender at the time. She also won the African and Mediterranean Championships in 2022 and reached the final of the IBA Women’s World Championships that same year. She took home silver after a defeat by another Irish boxer, Katie Broadhurst.

Nearly 17 months ago in New Delhi, Khelif was disqualified from the International Boxing Association’s world championships three days after she won an early-round bout with Azalia Amineva, a previously unbeaten Russian prospect. The disqualification meant Amineva’s official record was perfect again. Convenient.

The IBA said Khelif and fellow boxer Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan failed “to meet the required necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors” and claimed that they had XY chromosomes, most commonly found in males, rather than the XX pairs most commonly found in women. However, the tests used were not specified and the results were not shared except via an IBA announcement.

The IOC, which decertified the IBA after a series of scandals and governance issues , has run the boxing competition at the past two Olympics and is pushing back against the “culture war” engulfing Khelif and Lin Yu-ting. Last week, IOC spokesman Mark Adams cast doubt about the tests the International Boxing Association said it had administered. “We have no knowledge of what the tests were,” Adams said. “They were cobbled together, as I understand, overnight (during the world championships) to change the results.”

Mike McAtee, USA Boxing’s executive director, has been running USA Boxing for three Olympics and said he has been familiar with Lin and Khelif for years. According to The Washington Post , he said there have never been allegations of the women having higher-than-average levels of testosterone that might give them an inherent physical advantage over other female fighters. He pointed to Khelif’s nine career defeats and the fact that only five of her 37 victories over seven years have come by knockout. Adams said both women have received a significant amount of abuse online and that “real damage is being done by misinformation.”

IOC President Thomas Bach defended its decision to allow the two women to compete, saying concerns over their gender identity are “totally unacceptable.” He blasted the pushback as “hate speech” and reiterated that the two boxers were “ born as women , who have been raised as women, who have a passport as a woman, and who have competed for many years as women.”

Khelif said the wave of hateful scrutiny she has faced “harms human dignity” and has called for an end to the bullying of athletes.

“I send a message to all the people of the world to uphold the Olympic principles and the Olympic Charter, to refrain from bullying all athletes, because this has effects, massive effects,” Khelif said in Arabic . “It can destroy people, it can kill people’s thoughts, spirit and mind. It can divide people. And because of that, I ask them to refrain from bullying.”

Those bullying messages calling women men spread like wildfire. Confirmation bias and jumping on the latest bandwagon has caused real hurt. Few have apologized for the bullying or the spread of misinformation and in fact, some are doubling down on calling Khelif a man.

Socrates is said to have given the following advice before speaking (or posting on social media): Let your words pass through three gates: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? Might I suggest that we all take a breath and pause before posting information that may not be true. And if we do post prematurely, and find out we are wrong, apologizing and deleting the false information is the right thing to do.